May 26, 2013

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SERMON:

Today is
Trinity Sunday, the Sunday which we set aside to meditate on the three-in-one
nature of God.

In the Bible
God describes Himself as a single entity. That is, He describes Himself as a
single spirit being—one God. But God also describes Himself as being composed
of three separate and distinct persons: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

This is a
mystery. We can know and believe that God is three-in-one, but we don’t really
understand how that can be. To date, man hasn’t found anything in creation that
is three-in-one in the same way that God describes Himself. And this makes
sense. We would expect to find that the creator is different in some ways from
His creation.

When we’re
teaching children about the Trinity, we might use an apple to help them get
some idea what God’s triune nature is like. An apple is composed of three
parts: the peel, the flesh and the core. The peel isn’t pear, it’s apple. The
flesh isn’t pumpkin, it’s apple. The core isn’t peach, it’s apple. Peel, flesh,
and core are all apple.

In a similar
way, the peel isn’t flesh, it’s peel. The flesh isn’t core, it’s flesh. The
core isn’t peel, it’s core. But together they are ONE apple.

Others might
use water to describe the Trinity. There is liquid water, solid ice, and water
vapor—but they’re all water.

But, you
know, any visual aids we might use to illustrate what three-in-one means fall
short at some point. God is simply beyond any earthly example we might point
to.

Trying to explain
God’s qualities by using visual aids from the physical world, is a bit like
trying to understand an artist by their art alone. We may learn quite a bit
about an artist through their work, but we’ll understand a lot more about them
if we simply spend time with them. Daily contact helps us to learn what a
person is like more than anything else.

▬

The disciples
of Jesus had that opportunity. They lived with the Son of God. They traveled and
conversed with Him for three solid years during His ministry. They were invited
to have daily contact with Jesus, and through this contact they learned something
about how the persons of God function together.

Jesus gives
us a glimpse into how the persons of the Trinity function in our sermon reading
for today. On the night before Jesus was crucified, He told His followers the
following.

John 16:12-15
(NASB)

12 “I
have many more things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.

13 “But
when He, the Spirit of truth, comes, He will guide you into all the truth; for
He will not speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak;
and He will disclose to you what is to come.

14 “He
will glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you.

15 “All
things that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and
will disclose it to you.

▬

On the night
when Jesus told His disciples these words, He was well aware of the fact that
He would be leaving them soon. He knew that His betrayal and crucifixion were approaching.
He also knew that after His crucifixion and resurrection, the disciples would
still NOT be ready to hear a lot of the things He had to tell to them. But in
time, they would be. And Jesus trusted that at the right time, the Holy Spirit
would take up the work of further educating His disciples.

The first
thing that we learn about the Trinity from Jesus’ words here is that they work
together seamlessly. The things that Jesus couldn’t tell the disciples because they
weren’t ready, the Holy Spirit WOULD tell them. Jesus says,

“…When He,
the Spirit of truth comes, He will guide you into all the truth;” (John 16:13
NASB).

The second
thing that we learn about the Trinity from Jesus’ words is that in their
actions toward each other, they are self-less.

Now, when we
talk about regular people being self-less, we mean that they aren’t putting
themselves first. They consider the needs of others, the plans of others, and
don’t push themselves forward at the wrong time. This is what the members of
the Trinity do towards each other. Jesus says that the Holy Spirit,

“Will not
speak on His own initiative, but whatever He hears, He will speak;” (John
16:13 NASB).

As the Spirit
of Truth, the Holy Spirit has a lot to say. But in the future when the Holy
Spirit would come to the followers of Jesus, He wouldn’t start spouting off
about just any truth. Instead, Jesus says that the Holy Spirit would speak the
things that Jesus gave Him to speak. That is, He would give the disciples the
right information, at the right time, so that Jesus’ followers could serve as
His ambassadors to the world. Earlier, Jesus had told the disciples,

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He
will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all that I said to you” (John
14:26 NASB).

So, in their
relationship together, the members of the Trinity work together. They are
self-less. And the third thing that we learn here about the Trinity is that
they are humble toward one another.

Now, it may
sound strange to say that the members of the Trinity are HUMBLE towards each
other, but here’s what it means. Look at verse 14 again. Speaking of the
Holy Spirit, Jesus says,

“He will
glorify Me, for He will take of Mine and will disclose it to you” (John
16:14 NASB).

The members
of the Trinity glorify each other. The Son glorified the Father by doing what
the Father sent Him to do. He lived a life free from sin, and offered His
perfect soul to redeem sinners like you and me from hell. In response to His
obedience, the Father glorified the Son by raising Him from the dead for all
the world to see. In turn, the Holy Spirit glorified the Son by proclaiming
this truth to the world through the testimony of the disciples.

In Proverbs
27, it says,

“Let another praise you, and not your own
mouth;

a stranger, and not your own lips” (Proverbs
27:2 NASB).

This is what
the Trinity does. They work together, more seamlessly than any human team. They
are selfless in their dealings with one another, and they glorify each other.

▬

Now,
sometimes we talk about the different members of the Trinity as having
different jobs. In the Apostles’ Creed we say the Father creates, the Son
redeems, and the Holy Spirit changes those who have been brought to faith so
that they more closely resemble the Son by the things they think, say and do.
But upon further review, the jobs that the members of the Trinity do are really
TEAM JOBS—that is, they do these things together.

For example,
when the Father created the world we’re told that the Holy Spirit was also present.
He was hovering over the waters at the time of the creation. Where life was brought
into existence, the Holy Spirit was working. We’re also told that the Son was
there. Talking about God the Son, John chapter 1 says,

“Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has
been made”
(John 1:3 NIV).

So the
Trinity created our universe, together.

We often talk
about how Jesus redeemed sinners from hell by dying for them on the cross. By suffering
hell in our place, the punishment for our sins was erased. And while it is true
that the Son was the only member of the Trinity that became human and died on
the cross, we can’t forget what the Father gave up to redeem us. John 3:16 says,

“God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever
believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. 17 For
God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but that the
world through Him might be saved” (John 3:16-17 NKJV).

Was it
nothing for the Father to give up His only Son? To give over His Son to
infinite suffering so that the world of condemned sinners could be redeemed?
No! This was a big deal. This had never happened before.

The Trinity
redeemed sinners, together.

When we talk
about the Holy Spirit and what He does, we talk about the changes that are
effected in the hearts and lives of people brought to faith in Jesus. But what
message is the Holy Spirit proclaiming through the Gospel? He’s proclaiming the
life, death and resurrection of the Son! Through the Words of the Bible, the
Holy Spirit teaches us to live our lives as people who now serve our Savior,
not our sinful selves.

The Trinity
changes the way we live our lives, and the Trinity works these changes in us, as
a team.

▬

So, what is
it that enables the Trinity to function like this? It is TRUST. They work
seamlessly together because they trust each other completely. They can pass off
tasks from one to the next, having complete confidence that the job will be
done perfectly right. The relationship that exists between the members of the
Trinity is marked most clearly by TRUST.

And this is
what the Triune God invites sinners like you and me to be part of. A
relationship DEFINED by trust.

Having a real
relationship with God doesn’t mean just believing that some divine being must
exist. Having a real relationship with the Divine begins when we TRUST what He
says. That sin really IS that bad. That it WILL sever us from Him forever. But
that God’s Son really DID erase the record of our sins by His suffering and
death. And that through Him we TRULY stand cleansed from all our past mistakes,
evil thoughts, words and actions. A real relationship with God begins when
we trust what God says, that through His Son we stand FORGIVEN.

Through this
message, we are invited by God to be united to Him. To be reborn into His
family through the cross of Christ.

▬

I said
earlier that the relationship that exists between the members of the Trinity is
marked by TRUST. When sinners begin to trust that the God who made them, has
also saved them, then the Holy Spirit begins to educate us further. After faith
takes root in our hearts, the Holy Spirit begins to teach us what we weren’t
ready to learn before.

He teaches us
to work together as one. He teaches us to be self-less, putting the needs of
others ahead of our own. He teaches us to be humble, glorifying each other,
instead of ourselves. In short, after faith takes root, the Holy Spirit
teaches sinners to treat each other the same way that the members of the
Trinity treat each other.

Jesus said,

“All things
that the Father has are Mine; therefore I said that He takes of Mine and will
disclose it to you” (John 16:15 NASB).

Through the
message of sins forgiven through Jesus, we are invited in to the sublime
relationship of the Trinity. To be children of the Triune God. To take our
direction from HIM instead of from our own sinful hearts, or from other sinful
beings.

▬

If you wanted
to learn how to strengthen your marriage, what better way could imagine than by
moving in with a couple that already has a strong marriage? And seeing how they
work together.

If you wanted
to learn how to be a truly good friend, what better way could you learn than by
studying the ways of your most loyal and thoughtful friend?

If you want
to learn how to function best in all your relationships, what better way than
to learn from God, who has existed from eternity in the most sublimely perfect
relationship that has ever existed?

That is what
God invites us to experience in Christ. But God doesn’t just say, “Here, let me
show you how it’s supposed to be done”. First He says, “Here, let me forgiven
all your sins by My Son’s precious sacrifice, then I’ll teach you How to live
the way We do.”

▬

Some people
think that the idea of God being three-in-one is just a theological exercise.
You know, just Bible scholars splitting hairs and overanalyzing. But the more
we grasp what the Triune God is like, from His own testimony, the more we will
understand what He intended US to be. For in the beginning, God created Mankind
in HIS OWN IMAGE.

Is the
doctrine of the Trinity worth teaching to our children? To our members? To
ourselves? To our friends? Oh yes. For that perfect, sinless, seamless,
self-less, humble relationship was not only what Mankind was intended to be, it
is what we are invited to reclaim through faith in Christ Jesus.

Amen.

The peace of
God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus.

May 19, 2013

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SERMON:

Throughout the day, radio operators
on the Titanic had been receiving warnings about ice in the area. The
captain of the Titanic responded to these reports by turning the ship slightly
to the south. He did not, however, make any orders to slow its speed.

At 9:40 pm, a nearby ship reported
that they had seen a large ice field full of pack ice as well as a great number
of large icebergs. The radio operator on the Titanic, however, felt no
need to pass this information on to the ship’s bridge.

About an hour later, another nearby
ship reported that they had stopped when it became clear that they were
surrounded by ice. The Titanic’sradio operator responded to this
warning with the following message, “Shut up! Shut up! I am busy…”

About forty minutes later the ship
that was called “unsinkable” had scraped along the side of an immense iceberg,
and was now filling with water.

Two hours later, the Titanic was
on the bottom of the Atlantic ocean.

Some would say that an iceberg sunk
the Titanic. Others would argue it was human pride that took this ship
down.

▬

Pride is an exaggerated opinion of
one’s own importance, intelligence, or ability. Pride can be secretly cherished
in the mind, or displayed outwardly by what a person says and does.

Pride is problem for mankind today,
as it has been from the beginning. Countless tragedies can be traced back to
human pride.

The part of God’s Word which we’re
going to study today is all about pride.

▬

But, before we read from the Bible,
let’s get a feel for where we are in history. Our reading for today is a
fascinating and ancient account. It takes place somewhere between Noah’s Flood,
and Abraham’s birth. That is, it takes place somewhere around 4,300 years ago.

Noah’s family has come off the Ark
in the region of the world that we call Palestine. They have continued life.
Their families have grown. There are now many people on the earth. But these
people are all in one place. There are no nations yet, only this one group of
human beings. They are the only tribe. They are the only people.

Let’s see what happens.

Genesis 11:1-9 (NASB)

1Now the whole earth used the same language and
the same words.

2 It
came about as they journeyed east, that they found a plain in the land of
Shinar and settled there.

3 They
said to one another, “Come, let us make bricks and burn them thoroughly.” And they used brick for stone, and they used tar
for mortar.

4 They
said, “Come, let us build for ourselves a city, and a tower whose top will reach into heaven, and let us make
for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered abroad over the face of
the whole earth.”

5 The
Lord came down to see the city and
the tower which the sons of men had built.

6 The
Lord said, “Behold, they are one people,
and they all have the same language. And this is what they began to do, and now
nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for them.

7 “Come,
let Us go down and there confuse their language, so that they will not
understand one another’s speech.”

8 So
the Lord scattered them abroad
from there over the face of the whole earth; and they stopped building the
city.

9 Therefore
its name was called Babel, because there the Lord
confused the language of the whole earth; and from there the Lord scattered them abroad over the face
of the whole earth.

▬

The first thing about this account
that I find amazing is that these people are our ancestors. Like I said before,
at this point, there weren’t any nations yet, no ethnic groups, no differing
languages. This is the human race right here, from which we all have descended.

They’ve been living in Palestine,
when they decide for some reason, to migrate east. And the place they finally
decide to settle down in is Shinar—that is, Babylon. If you want to find the
place they went to on a modern map, just look about 58 miles south of Baghdad,
Iraq. That’s where this story unfolds.

We learn just a little about the
culture and technology of the time. Mankind had developed various building
methods by this point. They weren’t just tenting or building stick-frame houses,
they had learned how to process shale and fire uniform bricks from it. Bricks
that were strong enough that they could undertake a huge tower project.

They had the infrastructure to pull
this project off. They had the architects to plan it, the foremen to direct it,
the workers needed to build it, and the food sources to fuel all these people.

Furthermore, they had decided this
was a good place to settle down. You don’t build in brick if you’re planning to
leave anytime soon.

Verse 4
gives us their intent,

“Come, let us build for ourselves a
city, and a tower whose top will reach into
heaven, and let us make for ourselves a name, otherwise we will be scattered
abroad over the face of the whole earth”
(Genesis 11:4 NASB).

Unified under one language, Mankind
saw the potential for great power in community and numbers. And they were
beginning to dream about what they might do with that power.

But they needed something to keep
them together. Something more than one language must bind them together where
they might grow more and more powerful. Someone posed the idea of a great city,
and a great monument. A project that was grand enough to display their great
strength and ingenuity. Something to give them prestige and keep the future
generations here, like a huge magnet.

We can see their pride pretty
clearly, can’t we? What we don’t see is any thought of God. These were the
descendants of the faithful Noah! You would think that they would have passed
down the knowledge of their Creator. You’d think that they would have passed
down the Promise of the Savior from sin that God had made. No doubt there were
followers of the LORD among them who knew these things. But, still, we find no
mention of a great monument to God. No temple plans. No place of worship. The city
and the tower were to glorify mankind only.

▬

One of the characteristics of human
pride is that it always seeks to put Man in the place of God.

God’s plan was this: Make a world.
Fill it with human life. Bless that human world so that it would praise its Creator.

Man’s plan was this: Make a city.
Keep the people and the power in one place. Build a monument to glorify Man.

▬

When
Noah’s family stepped off the Ark and sacrificed a thank offering to God
for saving them from the flood, God told them that He would bless them. And
furthermore, God told them to go and spread throughout the world. In planning
this city and tower, the descendants of Noah were forgetting, rebelling even,
against God.

But spreading mankind throughout the
world wasn’t the main thing God was concerned about here. When God saw their
plans beginning to be fulfilled He said,

“Behold, they
are one people, and they all have the same language. And this is what they
began to do, and now nothing which they purpose to do will be impossible for
them” (Genesis 11:6 NASB).

God saw their pride. That it was
growing. That it would continue to grow as their project progressed. God knew
that pride of this kind had no room for Him. Pride of this kind takes the
abilities and blessings that God gives and uses them to squeeze Him out of the
picture. And so, God took action to limit Mankind’s destructive pride by
humbling him and dispersing his power.

The LORD simply took away their
unifying language. And their plans fell apart. With no way to overcome this
hurdle, they began to disperse through the land, and the country, and the world—as
God had told them to do in the first
place. And while their pride was not extinguished altogether, it was severely
limited in its scope and power.

▬

Today, man still dreams his dreams
of glory, power and prestige. We’ve split the atom. We treat cancer. We
transplant organs and limbs. We talk with each other on phones that reach
across the globe and beyond. We create technological wonders like face
recognition software, and drones which kill from above with terrible precision.
And we still build towers to show off our grand abilities. They stand in every
major city.

But when one empire rises to high,
the others turn and tear it down, and pride is brought down to the dirt once
more. Towers fall, ships sink, and monuments to the greatness of Mankind topple
over and rot in the dirt.

▬

I may sound like a bit of a negative
guy, but there’s a point to all this. God made mankind as the crown of His
creation. But when man uses his abilities to serve his pride, God interposes
and brings the prideful down.

And God doesn’t do this because He’s
a mean, spiteful God. He does this because He loves us. God alone belongs on
the throne of our hearts, and God will do anything He can to keep us from
putting ourselves there.

When our lives end, we must stand
before God and be held accountable for what we’ve done. Only the humble person
who relies on God for forgiveness will enter Heaven. That’s why God brings the
prideful down.

The prideful, God humbles. But the
humble, God lifts up. This is why God brings the prideful down, so He can lift us
up.

This is why God’s Bible talks so
much about our sins. We need to be humbled. We need to see that while we think
ourselves pretty good, God judges us by a higher standard. He pronounces us completely
unacceptable. Utterly sinful.

When we accept this truth, God shows
us His plan of salvation. He shows us that even though our sins disqualify us
for heaven, His Son has covered those sins by suffering Hell in our place and
dying on the cross. To those humbled by the knowledge of sin, God gives the
gift of forgiveness and eternal life in Christ Jesus.

If we depend on our own strength,
our strength will fail us. But if we depend on God’s strength, we’ll find that
our weakness is more than compensated for by the power of God.

▬

Today is Pentecost Sunday. It’s the
day that we remember how the Holy Spirit made His power known in Jerusalem. You
remember the story.

After Jesus had risen from the dead,
He told His followers to go and share the message of sins forgiven through His cross.
Go and tell sinners that in Christ they are cleansed and given a place in God’s
family. On the first Pentecost, the Holy Spirit gave the followers of Jesus the
ability to speak in languages they had never learned. And they used this power
to speak the message. Thousands came to faith and were saved from hell that
day.

Essentially, the curse of Babel was
reversed. Where communication had been lost due to Man’s pride, communication
was now restored miraculously so that God’s mercy might be proclaimed.

On the day when God looked down on
Babel, He toppled Man’s tower of pride. When God looked down on Pentecost, He
lifted mankind up by the gift of forgiveness in Christ, received through faith
in His Name.

▬

We began today by remembering how
one iceberg sunk one of man’s most glorious ships by brushing against it in the
Atlantic. But pride is more dangerous than any iceberg. Icebergs melt in the
warmth o f the sun. Human pride only melts in the light of God’s truth.

Take this lesson away with you
today. Our strength and intelligence is nothing when we set it against God. Our
sinfulness makes anything we might be proud about into absolutely nothing. In
other words, we are WORTHLESS because of our sin. BUT, in Christ we are
declared PRICELESS, because God’s own Son gave His life to redeem us and make
us His own.

Discard your human pride whenever
you see it, and let Christ be your boast instead. Like Paul wrote in his letter
to the Galatian Christians…

“14 May I never
boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has
been crucified to me, and I to the world”
(Galatians 6:14 NIV).

Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all
understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

May 12, 2013

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SERMON:

The book of Acts is essentially a
history book. But instead of relating world history, or regional history, the
book of Acts records the early history of the Christian church.

Christianity is the continuation of
the Old Testament worship of Yahweh, or as He is more commonly called, “the
LORD”. So, you could say that the
history found in the book of Acts isn’t the beginning of the Christian church
at all. But here’s the difference. Before Jesus came, the followers of the LORD
were always looking forward to the time when the promised Messiah would come
and rescue mankind from sin and hell. After Jesus came, their hope changed in
this way. Now the church proclaimed that the Messiah had come. And that the Messiah
was Jesus of Nazareth.

In our Sunday morning Bible Class
this year we’ve had the opportunity to study the book of Acts in detail. And
recently I had the opportunity to study through the book again, in preparation
for an outreach talk presented in Vancouver. From these studies, three key
observations rose.

First, the disciples who went out to
preach sins forgiven through Jesus presented His resurrection from the dead as unshakable
proof that their message was true. The disciples were first and foremost,
witnesses to the fact that Jesus had been raised from the dead. And in their
preaching they explain what significance this has for all sinners.

Second, miraculous signs done through the
power of the Holy Spirit served to confirm the apostle’s message. The history
of Acts is filled with miracles. The disciples speak in languages they never
learned. People are instantly healed of their sicknesses. There are demons cast
out of people. Others are raised from the dead. But no matter what kind of
miracle was performed, the ultimate purpose of each one was to point people to
Jesus, and to the forgiveness of sins that He offers.

Third, the message of sins forgiven
through Jesus was no manmade religious idea. The Gospel was God’s proclamation
to the world. And therefore, the message couldn’t be stopped. By God’s power
and according to His plan, the Gospel made it’s way through fiery persecutions
and opposition and spread throughout the world.

These are three of the major
observations that arise from a study of the book of Acts. And interestingly, these
three teachings are encapsulated in the very first chapter of Acts, from which
we read today.

The disciples of Jesus might
summarize all of this by saying, “We are His Witnesses”. We are
witnesses of His resurrection. We are empowered by His Holy Spirit. We are
tools of the Father through which His forgiving grace is made known to all.

Acts 1:1-11 (ESV)

1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all
that Jesus began to do and teach, 2 until
the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy
Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. 3 He
presented himself alive to them after his suffering by many proofs, appearing
to them during forty days and speaking about the kingdom of God.

4 And while
staying with them he ordered them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for
the promise of the Father, which, he said, “you heard from me; 5 for John baptized
with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit not many days from
now.”

6 So when they had
come together, they asked him, “Lord, will you at this time restore the kingdom
to Israel?” 7 He
said to them, “It is not for you to know times or seasons that the Father has
fixed by his own authority. 8 But
you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the
earth.” 9 And when
he had said these things, as they were looking on, he was lifted up, and a
cloud took him out of their sight. 10 And
while they were gazing into heaven as he went, behold, two men stood by them in
white robes, 11 and
said, “Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking into heaven? This Jesus, who
was taken up from you into heaven, will come in the same way as you saw him go
into heaven.”

▬

When the
apostles set about filling Judas’ empty place among the Twelve, they selected a
pool of men who had been with them from the time of John’s baptizing to the
time of Jesus’ ascension. They did this because this new apostle would need to
be a “witness to His resurrection”. Once the pool of candidates had been
selected, they drew lots, and Matthias became the twelfth apostle. But the main
point here is that the twelfth apostle needed to be someone who could say,
“Yes, I knew Jesus before He died, and I saw Him after He had been raised to
life.”

As you read
through the book of Acts, you find sermons of the apostles recorded on
different occasions. One thing that the apostles routinely come back to in
their preaching is that they had seen the resurrected Jesus.

And they didn’t
just see Jesus like an Elvis, or Bigfoot sighting. The resurrected Jesus,
complete with nail holes in His hands, spent FORTY days with His disciples
after the resurrection. During this time He continued to teach them about the
Kingdom of God, and He laid to rest any doubts they might have had about the
reality of His resurrection.

Have you ever
woken up the morning after some momentous event, and had to honestly ask
yourself if it was a dream, or if it had really happened? I’m guessing that
this was common among the followers of Jesus after the first Easter Sunday. It
makes sense that Jesus would stay with them until the shock wore off and they
were sure of who they had seen.

It was important that these
disciples be sure of the resurrection, because it would be the cornerstone of
their preaching. In the book of Acts, the apostles mention Jesus’
resurrection specifically some 21 different times. And here’s the reason. If
Jesus was really raised from the dead, that was God’s power at work. If God
raised this teacher from the grave, that was God’s stamp of approval on His
message. By raising Jesus from the dead, God was saying, “This is the Christ I
have sent to take away your sins”. Boil it down and this is what you get: If
Jesus was truly raised from the dead, He is the Savior God promised, and your
sins are forgiven because of His suffering and death on the cross.

Our faith is
not a faith without foundation. Our trust in Christ is based on the
resurrection witness of the men who were there. All who hear the message of
Jesus’ death and resurrection hear evidence which demands a verdict. Is the
testimony of these men true, or not? If it’s true, then that changes
everything.

▬

Now, when the
Gospel first went out, God also caused miracles to happen around it, to serve
as a secondary witness that this message was true. At the end of Mark’s Gospel it says,

“19 So then the Lord
Jesus, after he had spoken to them, was taken up into heaven and sat down at
the right hand of God. 20 And
they went out and preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and
confirmed the message by accompanying signs” (Mark 16:19-20 ESV).

Jesus’ own
ministry had been marked by all sorts of miracles. It makes sense that the
message of Jesus would be accompanied by more. And that’s what we find in the
book of Acts.

At Pentecost
the disciples speak in languages that they had never learned. In Jerusalem,
Peter heals a paralyzed man. The sick are healed and demons are cast out. A
faithful woman by the name of Tabitha is raised from the dead. Peter is set
free from prison by an angel. And on and on the list of miracles goes.

But listen to
the account of Paul doing a miracle on the island of Cyprus. When a wicked man
by the name of Elymas tried to turn people away from Jesus’ message, Paul
turned to him and said...

“You son of the
devil, you enemy of all righteousness, full of all deceit and villainy, will
you not stop making crooked the straight paths of the Lord? 11 And now, behold, the
hand of the Lord is upon you, and you will be blind and unable to see the sun
for a time.” Immediately mist and darkness fell upon him, and he went about
seeking people to lead him by the hand. 12 Then
the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at
the teaching of the Lord” (Acts 13:10-12 ESV).

The telling
line here is, “he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord”. Miracles were
impressive, yes, but what was more impressive was the message that accompanied
the miracles.

If you think
about it, a Christianity without miracles would still have the message of sins
forgiven and eternal life given through God’s own Son. But a Christianity with
loads of miracles but no message, would have so much less to offer.

▬

The last part
of our sermon reading for today takes place on the Mount of Olives. This was a
mountain that was just east of Jerusalem. From that mountain the disciples
would have had a pretty good view of the city.

Jesus took His
followers to this mountain at the end of the forty days. The disciples were
still hoping that Jesus was going to kick their Roman overlords out of the
country and establish a golden age for Israel. They ask Jesus,

“Lord, will you
at this time restore the kingdom to Israel?” (Acts 1:6 ESV).

But Jesus had a
better plan in mind. The plan of the Father. Instead of a temporary earthly
kingdom, Jesus would send the disciples out into the world to establish the
invisible Kingdom of Grace. He tells them,

“…you will be
my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the
earth” (Acts 1:8 ESV).

This would be a
pretty bold prediction for any mere human being to make. But Jesus was the Son
of God. And He knew that the message they were taking out was God’s message to
the world. It would succeed because God cannot fail. And it has. Followers of
Christ are now found in even the furthest corners of the globe.

As one final
sign that God’s power was at work here, Jesus was then lifted up into the air
and disappeared from their sight when a cloud drifted between them. And then angel
messengers reassured the gawking disciples that Jesus would one day return in
the same way that He left. All of this is to say, God’s plan was laid out, and
it would progress according to the Lord’s will.

Some scholars
aren’t satisfied with the way the book of Acts ends. The book ends with the
apostle Paul arriving at Rome where he is to go on trial before Caesar. Here’s
the final words of Acts…

“30 He lived there two
whole years at his own expense, and welcomed all who came to him, 31 proclaiming the
kingdom of God and teaching about the Lord Jesus Christ with all boldness and
without hindrance” (Acts 28:30-31 ESV).

The scholars
who don’t like this ending want to know what happened to Paul? How did the
trial go? What happened to Paul after this? They question, have we lost the
final chapters of Acts?

But really,
this is the perfect ending. The Gospel message that Jesus sent out with His
witnesses has reached the capital city of that part of the world. It is being
preached freely and is bringing more sinners to the throne of God’s grace. What
the Father planned out, is being accomplished through the tools He chooses to
use.

Instead of the
question, “What happened to Paul”, we aught to ask, how is the Lord going to
use my little life to bring glory to God and sinners to Christ? For one day
Jesus will come again, like the angels said.

How can I be a
witness of Christ’s resurrection?

How can I move
at the impulse of the Holy Spirit?

What part does
God have for me to plan in His plan of saving the world through Christ?

These are the
questions we need to have in our minds as we imagine Jesus ascending into the sky. Our ever living King has gone up to
rule the universe for our good. He has left with us His precious message of
free forgiveness and life eternal. He promises that His followers have His
power to compensate for our weakness.

May these
thoughts give you peace and strength as you face the troubles of this life, and
as you wait for Jesus to descend in glory.

Amen.

The peace of
God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in
Christ Jesus.

May 5, 2013

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SERMON:

When we hear a favorite song, things
start to happen. At the stoplight we begin to bob to the beat, we tap our hands
on the steering wheel, or we hum along with the melody. When the chorus comes
around we involuntarily find ourselves joining in with the hook. Music is
powerful in that way.

Our sermon reading for today is a
song. King David composed it to be used in worship. This song is about another
song, the one which God plays for the whole world to hear.

Just like a song played by a master
musician, God’s song is powerful. It elicits a response from those who hear it.
“When God Plays, the World Sings”. When God plays the song of forgiveness,
the world is filled with joy. When God plays a song of power, the world is filled
with awe. And when God plays the song of providence, the world is moved to
thankfulness.

Psalm 65 (NIV)

For the director of music. A psalm of David. A song.

1 Praise awaits you, our God, in Zion;

to you our vows will be fulfilled.

2 You who answer prayer,

to you all people will come.

3 When we were overwhelmed by sins,

you forgave our transgressions.

4 Blessed are those you choose

and bring near to live in your courts!

We are filled with the good things of your house,

of your holy temple.

5 You answer us with awesome and righteous deeds,

God our Savior,

the hope of all the ends of the earth

and of the farthest seas,

6 who formed the mountains by your power,

having armed yourself with strength,

7 who stilled the roaring of the seas,

the roaring of their waves,

and the turmoil of the nations.

8 The whole earth is filled with awe at your wonders;

where morning dawns, where evening fades,

you call forth songs of joy.

9 You care for the land and water it;

you enrich it abundantly.

The streams of God are filled with water

to provide the people with grain,

for so you have ordained it.

10 You drench its furrows and level its ridges;

you soften it with showers and bless its crops.

11 You crown the year with your bounty,

and your carts overflow with abundance.

12 The grasslands of the wilderness overflow;

the hills are clothed with gladness.

13 The meadows are covered with flocks

and the valleys are mantled with grain;

they shout for joy and sing.

▬

God’s song of
forgiveness was heard by Adam and Eve right after they sinned for the first
time. God promised that one of Eve’s descendants would crush the power of Satan
and set sinners free from our damning sins. (Genesis 3:15)

Even before
Jesus suffered and died to set sinners free from hell, people were already
responding to God’s promise of a Savior. David knew well the promise that God
had made. It moved him to write,

“When we were overwhelmed by sins, you forgave our
transgressions” (Psalm 65:3 NIV).

The first response to God’s song of
forgiveness, is joy. God saw our sin and immediately provided a way of
forgiveness. A way of forgiveness that we have no part in earning. That sounds
odd to us human beings. When we sin against other people, we usually have to
fix the mess ourselves. We have to own up to what we’ve done, apologize, and earn
our way back into that person’s trust. But God responds to man’s sin by saying,
“I will fix this, because you cannot. I’ll send my Son to suffer and die in
your place. Through Him you’ll be declared innocent.”

Since we know salvation is completely
finished by Christ, Christians look for something else to do, and we find
praise. David writes,

David paints a picture. It’s like
there’s a huge choir that is ready to praise God on Mt. Zion. They’re prepped
and ready to begin a song for God, and they’re waiting for Him to come to the
Temple. With the phrase, “Praise awaits you”, David makes us think of that
moment after the choir piece has been introduced, and the singers are drawing
in breath to begin their song.

God’s song of forgiveness is what
moves us to sing praise to Him. And one way that we praise God is through
obedience to His commands.

God’s song of forgiveness draws people
in from across the globe to join His choir. Forgiveness in Christ brings us into
the house of God where we sing His praise and are filled with all sorts of
inward, spiritual blessings.

If we find that we’re not moved to
sing God’s praises, its probably because we haven’t heard His song, or have
failed to appreciate how precious His gift of forgiveness really is.

The world trains us to think of
physical things as most desirable. A nice home, a fun vacation, a new gadget to
play with. But the richest possessions on this earth are not those which we can
take in hand. The inner, spiritual blessings that come with Christ’s
forgiveness are far better.

Through faith in Christ Christ we
have relief from the guilt that sin lays on our minds. We have peace, knowing
that God loves us, and is watching over our lives with care. We have confidence,
knowing that God’s Word can guide us to the wisest course of action in any
situation.

It isn’t the things we find at the
mall that lead us to a satisfying and joy filled life, it’s the things we are
given in God’s house. It isn’t the things WE put on the outside that complete
us, it’s the things GOD puts in our hearts.

▬

If God’s message of forgiveness is a
song, it’s a song that turns a unexpected phrase. It’s a song that sounds
different than anything we’ve ever heard before, but is sweeter and more
welcome than any of our other favorites. The Gospel is a gentle, welcoming
melody.

But God also plays a song of power
to get the world’s attention. In the middle of Psalm 65 David paints a
picture of God’s complete sovereignty over the world and it’s inhabitants.

David says that God makes MOUNTAINS.
Only the most adventurous people attempt to climb the world’s highest
mountains, and often they die in the attempt. But in the beginning, God formed
these mountains with His own hands, like a child molding Play-Doh.

David says that God stills the
ROARING SEAS. Man make giant ships that travel across the Atlantic and the
Pacific like a fleet of scurrying bathtub toys. When the hurricane threatens,
all we can do is hunker down behind the wheel and hope our vessel will hold.
But God has the power to make the angry ocean as still as a glassy lake at the
break of day.

David also describes the turmoil of human
politics. When the NATIONS of men rattle their sabers and arm their nuclear
weapons, people worry and prepare for the worst. But God maneuvers the great political
powers of the world to serve HIS purposes. He starts or ends their empires
according to His plan.

Like a champion slugger stepping up
to the plate, God sometimes even calls His shots. In the book of Daniel,
God described the rise and fall of the Persian Empire, the Grecian Empire under
Alexander the Great, and the Empire of Rome—all before they ever happened. In
that same book, God also foretold the rise of a different kingdom. One that
would begin during the time of the Rome, and would stand FOREVER. This was the
Kingdom of Christ Jesus, the Kingdom of grace and forgiveness. As you remember,
God’s Son was born under the reign of Caesar Augustus in the little town of
Bethlehem, just as one of God’s other prophesies had foretold.

Wherever people see the power of God
at work, they are filled with awe. If we aren’t filled with awe at the sight of
God’s powerful deeds, it’s probably because we don’t appreciate how impossible
these things really are.

Many of the so-called scholars of
the world aren’t impressed by the works of God because they dismiss Him from
the very beginning. They say that the prophesies found in Daniel MUST have been
written AFTER these nations rose and fell, because no human being could have
known these things would happen in advance. These scholars are unimpressed by
prophesy and fulfillment because they refuse to believe God exists. Is it any
wonder than these same “wise men” make a god out of chance and time? What else
is left when you’ve painstakingly cut God out of the picture? All they hear of
God’s song is noise. And so, sadly, they do not respond with praise and joy.

▬

But God plays on anyway, reaching
out to the doubters with another tune, one of tender providing. Toward the end
of Psalm 65 David writes about how God waters and tends the earth like a
giant garden. In response to His gardening, the world produces grain and flocks
of such abundance that each year the world could be fed one and a half times as
much food as it needs.

God does this quietly, with a soft
and gentle tune. The drip, drip, drop of April showers fall on fields prepared
for the growing season. Life nourishing water fills the troughs between rows of
planted grain. The mist from above softens ridges of fields from China to
Australia and everywhere in between. In the wilderness far from man’s houses
the grass springs up for the deer. In the pastures of ranchland the flocks and
herds give birth to more and more young. For the vegetarian, the carnivore, and
the omnivore, there is abundant provision—all from the hand of the Lord. Like
we read in last Sunday’s Psalm,

“The eyes of all look to you, O
Lord, and you give them their food in due season. You open your hand and
satisfy the desire of every living thing” (paraphrase of Psalm 145:15-16).

With His tender song of providence,
God calls out to those who do not know Him. His song informs them of His
character. He is the God who provides, both for the good and the wicked, in
hope that they will all turn to Him for forgiveness and life.

As nature sings out to the God who
made it through all its green growth and varied flowers, we are invited to sing
along in a song of thanksgiving.

▬

When you hear a true and moving
song, it’s right to sing along. That’s what music is for.

When the Centurion at Christ’s cross
saw Jesus give His life to redeem the world of sinners, He heard the song of
forgiveness and added His voice, saying,

“Truly, this man was the Son of
God!” (Mark 15:39 NKJV).

When the angels of heaven witnessed
God framing the world by, they heard God’s song of power, and added their
voices. The book of Job tells us that at the creation the angels,

“…shouted for joy” (Job 38:7 ESV).

When the world gathers in the year’s
harvest and notes how abundant it is, even the godless take a moment to reflect
on all that they have been given. Together they sing a song of Thanksgiving.

How much more fitting it is that we
who know much more of God’s character from His Bible, should sing His praises
every time we hear His song. We aught to sing when we hear God’s song, whether it’s
the tune of free grace and forgiveness in Christ, or the tune of God’s unlimited
power and majesty, or the tune of God’s quiet and continual providence.

God doesn’t just play His song in
order to make us join in. Like a master musician, He plays just because that’s
who He is, and what He does. But all the same, His song does invite us to add
our joyful voices.

First His song of forgiveness grips
our hearts and moves them sing inwardly. We thank God for declaring sinners saints
by the blood of His Son. Then, when the Gospel fills us up, that song begins to
sound out from our mouths as we speak of His grace. Then the beat of the
Father’s song finds it’s way into our life, moving us this way and that
according to His choreography.

Don’t fight that song, dear
Christians. Embrace its lines, and flow with its rhythm. Song and dance. That’s
what witnessing of our God’s greatness and mercy is all about. Singing to the
song of God, and moving to the rhythm of the same. Moving through life with one
thought in mind – to do justice to the masterful music which comes from Him. To
praise the God who made us, preserves us, and has saved our souls by His Son’s
cross.

Music is for singing and dancing.
And God’s song is for praising and living. When we hear it, let’s not ignore
it, let’s respond with joy.

Amen.

The peace of God which surpasses all
understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Pastor Mark Tiefel

Pastor Mark S. Tiefel graduated from Immanuel Lutheran College and Seminary in Eau Claire, WI, in May of 2012. He previously served Bethel Evangelical Lutheran Church. He was installed at Redemption on April 12, 2015.